In Britain, Labour Politicians Call for New Look at Scandal

Senior opposition politicians are calling on the government to respond to renewed accusations that Downing Street’s chief communications officer, Andy Coulson, encouraged reporters to illegally intercept messages from the cellphones of public figures when he was editor of The News of the World.

At the same time, a number of people whose phone messages may have been intercepted by The News of the World during Mr. Coulson’s tenure are accusing the Metropolitan Police of failing to fully examine all the evidence in its criminal investigation in 2006 and 2007.

Lord Prescott, a Labour politician who was the deputy prime minister under Tony Blair and who has been named as one of hundreds of people whose phones may have been hacked, said the police had never provided him with a sufficient explanation of what happened.

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“I have been far from satisfied with the Metropolitan Police’s procedure in dealing with my requests to uncover the truth about this case,” Lord Prescott told The Observer newspaper. It was only after “repeated requests,” he said, that he learned that he might have been a victim of phone hacking. If the police continued to fail to be forthcoming, he said, he would seek a judicial inquiry into their handling of the matter.